Confronting White Supremacy in El Paso: Naming the Sin

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From Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas:

“Hate visited our community and Latino blood was spilled in sacrifice to the false god of white supremacy,” the bishop writes. “Words like ‘racism’ and ‘white supremacy’ make us uncomfortable and anxious and I don’t use these labels lightly…. Challenging racism and white supremacy, whether in our hearts or in society, is a Christian imperative and the cost of not facing these issues head on, weighs much more heavily on those who live the reality of discrimination.”

“Our highest elected officials have used the word ‘invasion’ and ‘killer’ over five hundred times to refer to migrants, treated migrant children as pawns on a crass political chessboard, insinuated that judges and legislators of color are un-American, and have made wall-building a core political project,” the bishop writes. The letter describes the border wall as “a powerful symbol in the story of race” and a “monument to hate” that has helped “to merge nationalistic vanities with racial projects.”


I highly recommend you read the full letter before complaining about the Bishop’s words below. The full text of his letter can be found here: https://www.hopeborder.org/nightwillbenomore-eng
 
If the wall, or any other issue including Mass murder has anything with race or hate then the Bishop is correct. However I support the wall and I wish mexico was under as much criticism for its government and people and policies as the US is. Mexico is responsible for the death of millions. And there would be no border issue if that particular government functioned to protect it’s people.
 
IdaCatholic said:
If the wall, or any other issue including Mass murder has anything with race or hate then the Bishop is correct.
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The Bishop does a fantastic job of showing evidence for how the wall and white supremacy are intrinsically linked - the wall wouldn’t be an issue without white supremacy. A couple of examples:

"We in the borderlands understand in our bones the reality of hate directed at Mexicans and how people can be ‘othered’. Our faith community was born in the fraught encounter between Indigenous communities and Spanish colonists, a ‘choque de culturas’. In that encounter, an insidious message was sent like the report of cannon fire throughout the American continent which reverberates to the present day: Tú no vales. You don’t count.

“A sober reading of the history of colonization can discern both the presence of a genuine Christian missionary impulse as well as the deployment of white supremacy and cultural oppression as tools of economic ambition, imperial adventurism and political expansion.”

Later he links this impulse directly to the wall:

“Some cannot understand the visceral reaction of many in the borderlands to the wall. It is not just a tool of national security. More than that, the wall is a symbol of exclusion, especially when allied to an overt politics of xenophobia. It is an open wound through the middle of our sister cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. The wall deepens racially charged perceptions of how we understand the border as well as Mexicans and migrants. It extends racist talk of an ‘invasion’. It perpetuates the racist myth that the area south of the border is dangerous and foreign and that we are merely passive observers in the growth of narco-violence and the trafficking of human beings and drugs. The wall is a physical reminder of the failure of two friendly nations to resolve their internal and bi-national issues in just and peaceful way. It validates James Baldwin’s fear that Americans are addicted to innocence. It is a destructive force on the environment. The wall kills families and children. There will be a day when after this wall has come crumbling down we will look back and remember the wall as a monument to hate.”

Supporting the wall means supporting white supremacy.
 
I support the wall. I’m not a white supremacist. I would support the wall if I were black, Hispanic, white, or purple. It isn’t hate. It’s the sovereign right of ANY country to define its borders.

I support the right of mexico to build a wall on its southern border, I support the Vatican walls, I support the wall of China, I support a wall in my own backyard. Race has nothing to do with it. Honestly, I support a wall on the Canadian border.
 
IdaCatholic said:
I’m not a white supremacist.
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I didn’t say you are. I trust that you aren’t. But the wall is rooted in white supremacy, and exacerbates white supremacy, hence, supporting it is supporting white supremacy. Regardless of your own race, or thoughts on other walls (real or imaginary).
 
How does the wall support white supremacy when whites now make up barely 60 percent of the US population and falling quickly. Has he watched American TV lately. 70 percent or more of the people in commercials are non white, including all races and mixed. The ones with whites are usually interracial couples. Most tv shows and movies now feature interracial couples. This is the complete opposite of white supremacy.

The writer brings up mass shootings. Not all of those are by white racists. How about human trafficking across the border. Would a wall stopping that be racist. I support any country building a wall if it deems it necessary for security, regardless of what race is involved.
 
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Zach said:
I support any country building a wall if it deems it necessary for security, regardless of what race is involved.
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You should read the Bishop’s letter carefully. He is clear that political rhetoric around the wall, shows that it is not primarily about border security.

He traces the roots of white supremacy, and attacks it head on.
 
I read it. He has a narrative to which he fits all the facts. He makes some good points but it’s all one sided. Nothing is black and white without any grey.
 
IdaCatholic said:
I’m not a white supremacist.
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There was a great standup comedian, who said - very much jokingly - "I am not an anti-Semite, I merely hate the Jews! (Of course he did not…) The point is that being for or against the wall is insufficient information, unless we learn: “why”? If you (generic you) are for the wall to prevent the dirty, brown rapist masses to invade our pristine “white” shores, if you are for having open borders for Norwegians but not for Mexicans, then you are a white supremacist. If you say that the illegal immigrants-to-be should be shot in the foot, if you say that the border patrols are welcome to break the law, because they will be pardoned, if you separate and cage the children to discourage the attempt to get to the US, then you are a white supremacist.

Almost all of our forefathers were “illegal” immigrants, because there were no laws against coming to the country. Millions of refugees of all nations came to us, looking for a better life and they became good citizens. (Of course there were some crooks among them).
 
I said he makes some good points but so do wall advocates concerning security. Some racists exploiting the situation doesn’t mean there aren’t legitimate points made by wall advocates that have nothing to do with race.
 
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Of course. it is also possible he is wrong. Someohow I doubt he is considering that though.
 
“pristine white shores”? Are you talking about 60 plus years ago when whites were 90 percent of the US population or 2019 when whites are barely 60 percent and falling rapidly? Whites now make up less than 50 percent of babies born in the US.
 
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Thinker_Doer said:
if you are for having open borders for Norwegians but not for Mexicans, then you are a white supremacist.
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Norwegian and Mexican are nationalities not ethnicities. If all Mexicans are all hispanic and all Norwegians are all white that is their problem (diversity is good).

We don’t have open borders on our North. Canadians can’t just waltz in, legally. Sure it isn’t as watched as the south but would be if the level of Canadians or people coming thru Canada were violating the border at the levels seen at the southern border. Norwegians can’t just fly in and not go thru customs and they can’t fly into Mexico City and waltz across the southern border legally either.

I have a daughter that is ethnically hispanic, but she isn’t Mexican, she is American. I have a daughter that is ethnically asian, but she isn’t Chinese, she’s American.
 
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a wall just supports the legal system of entry. the wall stops a lot of issues, gun-running, human smuggling, drugs, etc.

the wall itself has no motivation. the people supporting it and those opposing it have the issues and both are right: to a degree.

why are those opposing it afraid of the legal system of entry? why aren’t they lobbying congress to change the immigration system?

why not create a work permit system that the Dems and GOP both really want?

Yes, the issue will be sticky, especially over citizenship, but they need to work it out instead of this waste-of-time fighting over a wall.
 
I agree. Ethnicity is the more proper term, my apologies.

I changed my previous post the reflect that.
 
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How do you take in account americans who legally came to America support the creation of the wall? Implying people who want their borders and laws protected are racist is now wise. Remember don’t bear false witness against yoyr neighbor.
 
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Lysander said:
How do you take in account americans who legally came to America support the creation of the wall? Implying people who want their borders and laws protected are racist is now wise. Remember don’t bear false witness against yoyr neighbor.
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The Bishop is clear in his language. He expresses his thoughts better than I do, so I defer to him on all points. He is absolutely clear in how he traces the development of white supremacy in American history, and how he links those ideas to the wall.

Not all people who support the wall are white supremacists, but the wall is a white supremacist idea.

And you don’t have to be white to be a white supremacist. You just have to hold the idea that white people are superior to one or other races.
 
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